Back to Willinghurst again today for the open match and after last week’s soaking I was pleased to see that if nothing else we’d be dry for the duration (something that is by no means a given at this time of year in England’s green and pleasant land). The numbers were down slightly on last week (just 16 today) but as the match was to be spread over Top Lake and Old Lake that would mean every match angler’s favourite phrase – lots of room!
The pre-match buzz implied that pegs 10 and 11 on Old Lake would be plumb draws (as there seemed to be a lot of fish in this area mid-week) so you won’t be surprised to hear that my dip into the bag of dreams saw Old Lake 10 stick to my mitt! This is a swim that I’d drawn before and for my money offers three interesting lines to go at – on top of the shallow central bar (that used to be an island) at about 20m, into the deeper water beyond the bar at about 30m and the platform opposite at some 40m. (The platforms opposite pegs 10 to 13 aren’t normally pegged in the open matches and that was the case today.)
For company I had ex-footballer (Dartford, Gravesend & Northfleet, West Ham, Peterborough, Wigan, Fulham, Hull, Ipswich and MK Dons) and the only angler fishing today with their own Wikipedia page – Jimmy Bullard – next door on peg 11 and fellow Apollo Guildford angler Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22. (Pegs 24, 26, 8, 5 and 1 were also in today.)
I kicked things off with a quick look on the central bar, though 5 minutes on bomb & bread followed by 5 minutes with a 10mm chocolate orange wafter failed to induce a pull so it was soon time for a switch to the feeder and a chuck to the platform opposite whilst commencing the relentless process of pinging 8mm pellets into the deeper water at 30m.
Two fish from the far side and one from the 30m line saw me finish the first hour with three reasonable carp in the net (not bad by Willinghurst standards as things normally start really, really slowly), though the second hour was even better with five more from the far side so by noon I had eight carp in the net and was probably ahead of Jimmy by a fish or two (who couldn’t buy a bite from his far bank but was picking-up carp on a semi-regular basis from his open water line on the bomb & punched meat).
The third and fourth hours weren’t quite as prolific – at the time the far bank line with the hybrid feeder still seemed the best bet for bite, though in reality the open water swim was just as productive as both lines yielded three fish each in this middle period of the match. (Resting the far bank line by fishing the open water swim often led to a quick bite when returning to it, so I guess it was still too early in the year for the fish to being feeding confidently in shallow water all day long.)
So at the end of the fourth hour I had 14 carp in the onion bag, probably neck-and-neck with Jimmy who had eroded my slender lead with more carp from his open water line.
Going into the final third of the match I was expecting sport to pick-up but from my perspective the fifth hour was my slowest with just two fish from the far side and no pulls from the open water swim – to compound things at this point Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22 started to slay some real munters from his short pole line and (end peg) Jimmy opened his long margin line to his left (which turned-out to be absolutely solid).
So come three o’clock and with my match slipping away from me I needed another option to get me out of jail – with no obvious margin line to speak of I decided to put my faith in some fish turning-up on the bar so I stopped pinging my open water swim and instead started to batter the shallow water down the middle with copious amounts of 8mm pellets. Luckily this line came good and probably saw the four biggest fish of the day grace the net before the ‘all out’ was eventually called at four thirty.
Those four fish from the bar saw me close my account with 22 carp from 23 pulls (and the one that I lost was definitely foul-hooked as it gave a really weird bite and it kited-off to the right in an odd fashion) for a grand total of 130-5-0, eclipsing my previous Willinghurst PB by a staggering three ounces!!!
This was just about good enough for third overall on the day – whilst I was miles behind winner Mick Keeper (178-8-0 from Top Lake) and Jimmy (who’s margin line really kicked-in to see him finish on 172-9-0), I was only just ahead of Jon Radford’s 126-9-0 and Jon Cook’s 120-odd meaning those bigger fish from the bar (coupled with a 95.65% conversion rate) made all the difference!!!
Until next time ...
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| Old Lake, peg 10 |
The pre-match buzz implied that pegs 10 and 11 on Old Lake would be plumb draws (as there seemed to be a lot of fish in this area mid-week) so you won’t be surprised to hear that my dip into the bag of dreams saw Old Lake 10 stick to my mitt! This is a swim that I’d drawn before and for my money offers three interesting lines to go at – on top of the shallow central bar (that used to be an island) at about 20m, into the deeper water beyond the bar at about 30m and the platform opposite at some 40m. (The platforms opposite pegs 10 to 13 aren’t normally pegged in the open matches and that was the case today.)
For company I had ex-footballer (Dartford, Gravesend & Northfleet, West Ham, Peterborough, Wigan, Fulham, Hull, Ipswich and MK Dons) and the only angler fishing today with their own Wikipedia page – Jimmy Bullard – next door on peg 11 and fellow Apollo Guildford angler Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22. (Pegs 24, 26, 8, 5 and 1 were also in today.)
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| Hard pellets and hi-viz hookbaits |
I kicked things off with a quick look on the central bar, though 5 minutes on bomb & bread followed by 5 minutes with a 10mm chocolate orange wafter failed to induce a pull so it was soon time for a switch to the feeder and a chuck to the platform opposite whilst commencing the relentless process of pinging 8mm pellets into the deeper water at 30m.
Two fish from the far side and one from the 30m line saw me finish the first hour with three reasonable carp in the net (not bad by Willinghurst standards as things normally start really, really slowly), though the second hour was even better with five more from the far side so by noon I had eight carp in the net and was probably ahead of Jimmy by a fish or two (who couldn’t buy a bite from his far bank but was picking-up carp on a semi-regular basis from his open water line on the bomb & punched meat).
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| Jimmy's back |
The third and fourth hours weren’t quite as prolific – at the time the far bank line with the hybrid feeder still seemed the best bet for bite, though in reality the open water swim was just as productive as both lines yielded three fish each in this middle period of the match. (Resting the far bank line by fishing the open water swim often led to a quick bite when returning to it, so I guess it was still too early in the year for the fish to being feeding confidently in shallow water all day long.)
So at the end of the fourth hour I had 14 carp in the onion bag, probably neck-and-neck with Jimmy who had eroded my slender lead with more carp from his open water line.
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| Three nets!!! |
Going into the final third of the match I was expecting sport to pick-up but from my perspective the fifth hour was my slowest with just two fish from the far side and no pulls from the open water swim – to compound things at this point Jon Radford diagonally to my right on peg 22 started to slay some real munters from his short pole line and (end peg) Jimmy opened his long margin line to his left (which turned-out to be absolutely solid).
So come three o’clock and with my match slipping away from me I needed another option to get me out of jail – with no obvious margin line to speak of I decided to put my faith in some fish turning-up on the bar so I stopped pinging my open water swim and instead started to batter the shallow water down the middle with copious amounts of 8mm pellets. Luckily this line came good and probably saw the four biggest fish of the day grace the net before the ‘all out’ was eventually called at four thirty.
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| Jon and Pikey improvising |
Those four fish from the bar saw me close my account with 22 carp from 23 pulls (and the one that I lost was definitely foul-hooked as it gave a really weird bite and it kited-off to the right in an odd fashion) for a grand total of 130-5-0, eclipsing my previous Willinghurst PB by a staggering three ounces!!!
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| The top 3 on the day |
This was just about good enough for third overall on the day – whilst I was miles behind winner Mick Keeper (178-8-0 from Top Lake) and Jimmy (who’s margin line really kicked-in to see him finish on 172-9-0), I was only just ahead of Jon Radford’s 126-9-0 and Jon Cook’s 120-odd meaning those bigger fish from the bar (coupled with a 95.65% conversion rate) made all the difference!!!
Until next time ...
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